Hervé Di Rosa, Playing Card Sheets, 1993

COLLECTOR'S ITEM

In 1993, French artist Hervé Di Rosa took the humble deck of cards and gave every single symbol a face. No two hearts grin alike. The diamonds squint, the clubs goggle and the spades pull faces. The court cards go further still: a star for the King of Diamonds, a Pinocchio for the King of Spades, and a one eyed Queen of Hearts with lips to match.

Every card convention gets turned upside down, and since the cards are reversible, right side up too.

These are uncut printer’s sheets. The cards were never cut apart, and the crop and registration marks still show in the margins, a little backstage glimpse of how a deck gets made. Together the two sheets form the complete 32 card French deck. One holds the kings, queens, jacks and aces. The other holds the sevens through tens in all four suits.

About the artist. Di Rosa was born in Sète in 1959. In the early 1980s he cofounded the Figuration Libre movement with Robert Combas, France’s answer to the bold, comic and graffiti fuelled energy of Keith Haring and Basquiat. He later founded the Musée International des Arts Modestes in Sète, and in 2022 he was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts.

Both sheets come framed in black with a wide white mat, ready to hang as a pair. They would suit a hallway, a games room or the wall above the bar cart.

Details

• Artist: Hervé Di Rosa (born 1959, Sète)
• Year: 1993
• Technique: screen print on card stock
• Set: 2 framed sheets of 16 cards each, a complete 32 card deck
• Frame: black frame with white mat
• Dimensions: 45x65 cm per frame
• Condition: as new